Author: djfrosty

For the third time — and in the second different calendar year — Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine tops the Billboard 200 this week.
The album, which originally debuted atop the chart dated Mar. 23, 2024 and spent two weeks at No. 1, returns to the apex with 137,000 units moved, according to Luminate. The album’s resurgence comes following the release of its Brighter Days Ahead deluxe edition, which boasts six bonus tracks — all of which appear on this week’s Billboard Hot 100, led by “Twilight Zone” at No. 18 — and comes with a short sci-fi film of the same name, starring Grande and her father, Edward Butera.

Do we think the commercial response validates the relatively lengthy wait for the deluxe edition? And what do we make of this mini-movie? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below.

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1. Eternal Sunshine returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week — a year after topping it the first time — with 137,000 units moved, following the release of the set’s Brighter Days Ahead edition. Is that performance better than, worse than, or about what you would have expected? 

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Hannah Dailey: Overall, I would say that it’s even better than I expected for a deluxe edition released a full year after the original – but I did anticipate the deluxe doing well in general. I think a lot of people really underestimate just how loved this album is. I’m certainly not surprised that there’s still so much interest in it all this time later! 

Kyle Denis: Much better. I assumed the album would return to the bottom half of the top 10 – especially because there’s no current radio single from the standard version and “Twilight Zone” didn’t exactly explode upon release – but to pull a six-figure total and return to No. 1 over a behemoth of a Playboi Carti album and Lil Durk’s latest set is amazing.

Lyndsey Havens: What I would expect. Ariana is a consistent chart-topper at this point, and the only thing I wouldn’t see coming is if Brighter Days Ahead fell short of the tally’s top spot. And the thing I love about this particular feat is that it wasn’t a curiosity rebound, meaning I don’t get the sense people listened only out of curiosity and then moved on. The songs on this deluxe are that good — and if Eternal Sunshine didn’t tell such a tightly knit story, they could have easily arrived then. But that’s what I love most about this deluxe; it arrived when the stories in these songs needed to be told, and when Ari was ready to tell them.

Jason Lipshutz: Better. Deluxe editions of major albums typically don’t arrive one year after the original album’s release, and considering how much of Ariana Grande’s focus has been on Wicked (and the upcoming Wicked: For Good), it’d be easy to surmise that she and her fans had moved on from Eternal Sunshine. So the fact that these deluxe tracks arrived less like a belated thank-you and more like the completion of a beloved project, with a six-figure equivalent album units total and a return to the top of the Billboard 200, represents a major win for Grande, on an occasion that she could have dismissed as minor.

Andrew Unterberger: Definitely better. This deluxe came a long time after the original album, and it feels it — since so much else happened in the interim, both in Grande’s career and pop music in general. To still have enough in interest in you and your most recent project to chart a half-dozen new songs on the Hot 100 (and none that low), while moving six digits’ worth of album units, should all feel pretty validating for Grande.

2. A year is a long time in 2025 to wait to release a proper deluxe edition of a hit album. Do you think it has proven a smart strategy for Grande, or should she have come with it a little sooner? 

Hannah Dailey: I’d usually say a year is an egregiously long time to wait between an album and deluxe, but in this specific case, I think the distance was to Grande’s benefit. First of all, a lot of the big pop releases that came after Eternal Sunshine in 2024 kind of overshadowed the album and pushed it out of the general public’s consciousness a bit; waiting this long to drop the deluxe gave it more than enough space from those other releases to totally stand out and have a second chance at being a quintessential pop moment of 2025, if not 2024. Second, it was nice to have a breather from all the Wicked craziness before Eternal Sunshine Part 2. It gave us a bit of time to miss Grande before she did anything else and re-orient our brains back to thinking of her as in pop star mode, not Glinda mode.  

Kyle Denis: I think it’s absolutely proven correct. She was risking serious overexposure if she launched a deluxe edition with six new songs and a movie while she was still knee-deep in Wicked press. The standard version got ample time to shine, and the deluxe now has several months – before Wicked: For Good press ramps up – to itself. It also helps that Grande put out a “slightly deluxe” version of the album in between its initial release and Brighter Days Ahead, so her Eternal Sunshine rollout has been meticulously plotted to avoid having too much Ari at one time. 

Lyndsey Havens: I’m genuinely curious how much of it was strategic and how much of it was basic logistics and/or intuition. Since Eternal Sunshine has arrived, Ariana has mostly been in Wicked promo mode. For the deluxe to arrive after awards season makes perfect sense on paper. But what could make even more sense is that Ariana could have still been living in or stuck on the stories behind these songs, and all they needed was a bit more time and space. Either way, I would love if this practice is adopted more. Take SZA’s Lana, for example: Was it a stretch to call it a deluxe? Sure. But was it nice to have some space in between projects? I think so. And at the end of the day, I think the best strategy is releasing something when the artist feels it’s ready — because that’s when it will likely hit the hardest.

Jason Lipshutz: Six months ago, I would have said the latter… but as it turns out, Grande was smart to roll out these songs following Wicked campaign. A months-long awards tour made it impossible for Grande to focus on Brighter Days Ahead promotion, so if these songs had arrived in late 2024 or early 2025, there likely would have landed as more of an afterthought during a hectic time. And instead of serving them up a month or two after Eternal Sunshine’s release, Grande let the standard edition stand on its own — and “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)” grow into one of her most enduring hits — before giving these deluxe tracks their own moment. A unique strategy for unique circumstances, but she pulled it off expertly.

Andrew Unterberger: I think it’s proving pretty smart. Intuitively I would’ve said it was a little late, but most deluxe projects come so early these days — sometimes just days, if not mere hours — after their originals that Grande actually giving some real breathing room between the two is something I’m more grateful for than I would have expected. (The songs being good also certainly helps!)

3. “Twilight Zone” is the clear leader of the new tracks from the reissue on the Hot 100 this week, debuting at No. 18. Does it feel like a long-lasting hit to you, or will it fall once the reissue’s early momentum wears off? 

Hannah Dailey: It definitely sounds like a hit to me, and I love how it adds to the narrative of the rest of the album. I predict that it’ll be a slow grower – it’s not the splashiest-sounding pop song, but it’s one that’s been getting randomly stuck in my head repeatedly ever since it came out, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one. I think that people will continue to keep coming back to it more and more over the next few weeks.  

Kyle Denis: I think it depends on how much Grande is willing to do for the song. If it gets a standalone video and some kind of live performance, I can see “Twilight Zone” sticking around the charts as a cute springtime hit. If she lets these songs sit and shifts her focus back to Wicked, I anticipate “Twilight Zone” falling a bit faster than the average Grande single. 

Lyndsey Havens: What’s crazy to me is while all five of the new tracks compete for the title of my favorite, “Twilight Zone” doesn’t often lead the list. It’s almost like each new song is better than the last, as I loved “Warm” but then “Dandelion” (the horn!) into “Past Life” into “Hampstead” is just an incredible run. But I do think “Twilight Zone” is the most sonically linked to Eternal Sunshine, which is why it was the perfect track to open the deluxe — and maybe why it’s connecting the most right now.

Jason Lipshutz: I think “Twilight Zone” is actually in for a pretty lengthy run, based on three things: the quality of the song, Grande’s established presence at top 40, and the fact that no new non-Wicked music is on the horizon. “Twilight Zone” travels down the same cozy synth-n-B path as “We Can’t Be Friends,” and streaming playlist curators and radio programmers should embrace it pretty quickly; the Wicked For Good campaign will dominate Grande’s focus during the second half of the year, so even if Eternal Sunshine tumbles back down the Billboard 200, this song will stand as her traditional pop bid in the months leading up to the film.

Andrew Unterberger: It does feel like a hit to me, but I’m not sure that it actually will be. Top 40 is just embracing so few new songs from anyone these days — even from proven hitmakers like Grande — and I’m not sure if the format will cut into its Benson Boone or Gracie Abrams spins for this deluxe edition song, especially if Grande isn’t really gonna push it herself. I hope it does, though — or that it finds footing enough on streaming to be a long-lasting hit there — because it certainly does deserve to have that kind of endurance.

4. In addition to the new songs, Brighter Days Ahead comes with an accompanying short film of the same name, featuring many of the album’s tracks. Does the mini-film add much to the album era/experience to you? 

Hannah Dailey: Honestly, the short film didn’t do much for me by way of enhancing the album. I more just love to see Grande marrying her loves for music and acting in a way that clearly makes her feel really fulfilled creatively, and in general it was nice to have something extra to end the Eternal Sunshine era on a grander note. 

Kyle Denis: In some ways, yes. Longtime Grande fans are very aware of how rocky her relationship with her father has been throughout her career, so to see him make a cameo in the film as the doctor who uses music to put her back together after the press tore her to shreds… that was an unbelievably beautiful full-circle moment. Brighter Days Ahead is also easily the strongest distillation of Grande’s creative pysche that she’s offered so far; her beloved horror elements are on full display, and the film’s throughlines help emphasize the message of Eternal Sunshine and flaunt her dramatic acting skills. While the pacing was a bit clunky, the short film only leaves me more excited to see where Grande (and Christian Breslauer, or perhaps a different collaborator?) goes next visually. 

Lyndsey Havens: Only in the sense that it’s a great metric for fans to understand that in this case, similar to what I said above, this deluxe isn’t necessarily a strategic play. Creating and delivering a short film to accompany these new tracks only proves how much of a story is baked into them, and how moved Ariana felt to not only tell that story, but bring her fans into it, in more ways than one.

Jason Lipshutz: The short film adds a compelling visual element to the Eternal Sunshine deluxe edition, but ultimately, “Twilight Zone” transcends the greater context around it, just like prior Hot 100 chart-toppers “Yes And” and “We Can’t Be Friends.” Grande has spent time over the past eight years re-positioning herself as a traditional albums artist after breaking through with a string of hit singles beginning in 2013… but full-length statements like Thank U, Next, Positions and Eternal Sunshine still contain those hits, and her latest album is defined by those radio-ready standout moments. If the short film better exemplifies the tone of Eternal Sunshine, Grande’s latest chart hit prolongs the era with more powerful commercial intent.

Andrew Unterberger: I can’t be mad at any music video with real ambition (and a real budget!) in 2025.

5. Has your relationship with or view of Eternal Sunshine changed any over the past year from when it was released? 

Hannah Dailey: I loved Eternal Sunshine on my very first play-through, and I have loved it (and listened to it on, at minimum, a weekly basis) ever since. To me, it still represents Grande in a place of full creative liberation – you can hear that she made these songs, both original and deluxe, not because she had to, but simply because she had music and words inside of her that desperately needed to come out in the studio. If anything, I’ve come to accept more since its release that this could very likely be the last album we get from her in a long time as she shifts her focus to acting, which makes listening to it a little more bittersweet.  

Kyle Denis: I already loved it upon release, and I’ve only grown to appreciate it more. Eternal Sunshine is now officially my favorite Ari album. She’s really settled into post-Imogen Heap/Brandy lane that suits her damn-near perfectly. 

Lyndsey Havens: Hm, not really. I think another benefit of releasing a deluxe so long after the album itself is that it can reignite interest. While I listened to Eternal Sunshine on loop for months after it came out, naturally that fades with time and with more and more new music always incoming. So, while my love for the album never waned, this deluxe has only helped strengthen my relationship with it once again. And now, perhaps unfortunately for me, it’s only left me wanting even more.

Jason Lipshutz: Definitely — after previously considering Eternal Sunshine a mid-tier Grande project, the album’s emotional maturity has resonated with me in a clear way in the months following its release. The Brighter Days Ahead songs have underlined the overall project’s tone and purpose — so, chart performance aside, the deluxe edition has been an unequivocal success. 

Andrew Unterberger: Not really, but I do have more of a belief now that it will go down as a classic album and a major part of her legacy.